Carrying vehicles are known in which the vehicle to be transported is pulled onto the bed of the transporting vehicle. Traditionally, the transporting vehicle employed a winch centered on the bed near the cab of the transporting vehicle. The traditional system remains useful for vehicles designed to be pulled from a centered location. However, certain vehicles now have towing eye bolts that are located off the center of the vehicles. This arrangement may lead to damage to the transported vehicle, and to the towing equipment, when the traditional centered winch arrangement is used.
To address the problem, the industry has employed systems that allow the cable running between the winch on the transporting vehicle and the towing eye bolt of the transported vehicle to be offset, in order to laterally align with the location of the towing eye bolt. For example, such a system is disclosed in European Patent Specification, EP 0 875 483 A3, published on Jun. 2, 1999 and titled “Winch Apparatus,” which is entirely incorporated herein by reference. However, these known systems require manual movement and/or locking of portions of the towing system in order to allow a full range of motion across the bed of the transporting vehicle. Manual movement and/or locking may lead to injury and/or damage to towing equipment and/or the transported vehicle.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide an assembly and method which solves the above referenced problems while maintaining advantages of such known assemblies and methods.